Quotes About Songwriting

It's such a hard thing to write a song for your fans without sounding naff and thanking them for spending money on you.

I wrote 'Lights' a long, long time ago. And I expected it to be on the album, because it was - I wrote it with 'Biff' Stannard. And he wrote every single Spice Girls song and every single pop song of the 90s, basically. So I thought, you know, I was really lucky to work with him, but I didn't think it would be a big song for some reason.

There was never an 'a-ha' moment when a spider bit me and I knew I could write songs. For that reason, I don't know if I'm always going to be able to. I want to write songs forever, but it's an elusive thing.

How did I write 'Spin Me?' I listened to Luther Vandross's 'I Wanted Your Love.'

I wrote a song called 'Four Times A Lady' for Destiny's Child, and it was perfect. But then I had to spin it back and change all the lyrics to a guy's point of view cos I thought the track was too good to give away, heh heh. It's Craig David now.

Songwriters always reminded me of that kid at school who would go around with his guitar, like, "Yeah, songwritin' man," looking wistful. That wasn't me - those kinds of people put me off.

Sometimes the lyrics just fall out of my mouth.

Writing songs and looking for ideas is like blinking my eyes. It's an involuntary muscle. I do it without thought.

I write other people songs. Recirculate it. It's the music business.

We know how fickle the music industry is and that you have to focus on the things you can control-writing songs and playing music.

Whenever I'm writing a song, if I have an idea for the music video, that's how I know it's a good song.

I'm like a bad musical cliche because I bring my guitar on the road and try to write songs in hotel rooms.

I have this theory about us. When we started writing our own songs, we were 17 years old. When you're 17, you write songs for other 17-year-olds. We stopped growing musically when we were 17. We still write songs for 17-year-olds.

I really don't have a method. I gravitate towards the organic/acoustic, but I still often complete songs musically before attempting to find the lyric.

There's something to writing a hook and something to writing a memorable melody. That's what I liked about musicals. Then I realized I could write my own songs, and I didn't have to sing other people's.

The first song I wrote was for my friend. She was going through a really tough time.

I don't know - it's a bit of a mystery of how things come about when they do. I don't have a scientific explanation for it. Sometimes when you're writing a song, you don't know where you're going.

I wrote a song with a guy named Brian McKnight, who's a huge R&B guy.

I think I initially started inventing characters in my songs because I didn't want to write directly about myself. Also, as a kid, I loved all the character names in Beatles songs, like Eleanor Rigby and Lovely Rita and Mean Mr. Mustard and Maxwell and Rocky Raccoon.

One of the great reasons to be in Nashville is, you get guys like Shane McAnally to write songs with.

We're not just going to take some songs from a focus group in Nashville where people are sitting around in a circle having appointments trying to write catchy songs so they can sell them to a band like us.

I moved to Nashville with the same kind of mindset that I had in L.A., and that is to make sure you don't get outworked by anybody and make sure you're always writing songs and take every opportunity to play that you can.

A lot of people in Nashville think that the best song is the catchiest or the one that sells the most copies. They're editing songs in a way that make them seem more consumable, I guess. I'm trying to edit them in a way that makes them more honest.

The truth is, that's what we moved to Nashville to do - to learn how to write hit songs. We weren't necessarily trying to get on college radio. We're trying for mass appeal.